


Bound

by misanthropyray



Series: A Tentative Affair [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sex Pollen, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:48:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropyray/pseuds/misanthropyray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to 'Squeeze' but could be read as a standalone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipwreck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipwreck/gifts).



> Thank you to thisprettywren for being so pretty and to omletlove who make my made-up science a bit less made-up.  
> Also, there is some sneaky consent issues here but I assure you that by the end, everyone involved has a thoroughly lovely time.

“When did you last eat, Sherlock?” He sounded angry. Why was John angry?

“This morning.” His voice caught in his throat, croaky and unfamiliar to his own ears. When he became aware of his own body again, it felt heavy and stiff as he lay supine on the floor of an alley he didn’t recognise.

“Don’t lie to me.”

Was he lying? He couldn’t tell. He tried to think back to that morning but his mind was thick and clouded. A moment ago, it might have been clearer but now everything moved together in an indefinable mass. There was a morning and there was food, but was that today? It could have been days, weeks. Were the two even associated? He wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know.”

John tucked his hand under Sherlock’s shoulder, lifting him from the pavement. “Come on, let’s get you to hospital.” The word was visceral to him, like a swinging punch to the gut. He curled away from the hand that tried to angle him, lunging away gracelessly, his cheek coming to rest against the tarmac.

“No, I can’t. Just take me home.”

“Sherlock, please. I can’t help you at home, we need equipment I don’t have.”

Sherlock reached a leaded arm into his coat pocket, fingers uncoordinated but eventually managing a loose grasp on the phone tucked in there. Shifting his shoulder, he managed to flick the phone from his pocket and send it skittering across the pavement. “Call Mycroft then.”

* * *

They had set up the equipment in Sherlock’s room, arriving within the hour and leaving again in a matter of minutes following a whirlwind of activity. Mycroft’s worker bees; silent, obedient and relentlessly efficient.

Sherlock was ghostly pale against the white sheets covering him, his cheekbones sharp angles beneath the hollowed sockets of his eyes. The case had been hard, John knew that, but this seemed utterly disproportionate. Sherlock had pushed himself harder than this, worked his body for longer without any apparent side effects yet now he lay unconscious in his bed attached to a saline IV.

John sat on the kitchen chair he’d moved to Sherlock’s bedside. He brushed the damp curls of hair from his forehead and placed a palm over the moist skin to check for a fever. If anything, it felt cooler than normal. He was severely dehydrated and malnourished, possibly with an infection to boot, he should definitely feel hot to touch, but his skin was cool and clammy beneath John’s hand.

He fetched his stethoscope, lifting off the duvet and rucking up the t-shirt to reveal the torso beneath. As he dotted the stethoscope around his chest, listening to his heart, lungs, diaphragm and finding them all normal, John watched Sherlock’s face. He looked peaceful, at rest with the gentle, rhythmic thrum of his heart. John tried to think of an occasion when he had seen his flatmate sleeping in the month or so since they had been living together and came up blank. He’d always been too caught up in the maelstrom that is Sherlock to really take note of the calm in between. It was strange to see Sherlock looking so entirely vulnerable.

When he began to roll Sherlock’s t-shirt back down, he noticed them; dark circular bruising, each about the side of a thumb-print, dotting up Sherlock’s side. He ran his fingers lightly over them, checking for breaks in the skin or any underlying evidence of more serious tissue damage. They seemed like normal bruises, though the regulated pattern was odd; Sherlock hadn’t mentioned anything that might have caused them, but then it wasn’t unlike him to hide things he didn’t deem important. John supposed he would try to keep an eye on them.

John checked the drip valve and cannula nestled in the soft skin of Sherlock’s elbow then retreated to the kitchen to make himself a coffee.

Whatever had happened, had probably been happening for a couple of days before any visible symptoms manifested and clearly Sherlock had just ignored them. Any pain or discomfort would have been compartmentalised or deleted in favour of the serial rapist investigation. On some level, John thought, that would be considered admirable prioritising but mostly it was just idiotic.

John had been to work in the morning, then caught up with Sherlock and the case in the afternoon. By then, he’d looked awful. His skin was pale and he looked somehow thinner. It was impossible though; a trick of the light, a difference in clothing, environmental comparison, so many things that could have cause it, because one person doesn’t radically change overnight.

He was just finishing his coffee when Sherlock woke up, nonsensical groans emitting loudly from his room.

“Thirsty, John.” He filled a glass with water before going to see the patient.

* * *

His body seemed weighted to the bed and wracked with cold, his pulse a tangible beat throbbing through aching limbs. Sherlock’s throat felt raw, trying to swallow and closing around nothing.

John passed him a glass of water and he couldn’t stop his hand from shaking as he took it. He spilled some of the water on himself as he drank, holding the glass in both hands. The first wave of water felt like glue against his parched throat. He drained the glass and handed it back to John who sat by his bedside, his face riddled with doctorly concern.

“How do you feel?”

“Appalling. And hungry.”

John stifled a slight grin, “Well, I’ve checked you over and you seem more or less okay besides the obvious. You’re going to be attached to that IV for another couple of hours though at the very least. I’ll go and get you something to eat.”

He disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Sherlock to run his own physical self assessment. He tentatively stretched out his limbs, one by one, feeling the burning ache of his muscles as they slowly responded. His brain still felt misted and slow; he tried to trace back the events before the alley, and each tiny spark of thought dissolved in an instant. How had he gotten there? Why had he collapsed? Why was today different from every other case? What had changed?

There was nothing, only the terrifying disorder of his own mind. He couldn’t organise it, couldn’t seek out the information that he wanted, it was there but he just--

John returned to the room with a tray. The smell of tomato soup filled the room and Sherlock’s stomach echoed loudly in reply. He moved to the bedside table, sweeping away the detritus covering its surface with a crash and placing the tray there carefully. There was the bowl, two bread rolls and a jar of peanut butter.

John played the good doctor, fluffing his pillows and helping him sit up slightly. He picked up the bowl of soup, holding the spoon out to Sherlock who took it with a trembling hand. When the spoon rose from the liquid, the soup immediately fell back into the bowl. Sherlock tightened his jaw and exhaled, concentrating on stilling the aggressive shuddering that ran through his arm. It was a bowl of soup and he was Sherlock Holmes, this shouldn’t have been such a challenge.

When the disobedient soup leapt out of the spoon once more, he slammed it back into the bowl with a splash. John, ever stoic John, took the spoon and silently offered it. There were no words of pity or charity, no slight looks of condescension or mocking, and Sherlock could not have been more thankful for it.

They sat in a monitored silence, a quietly understood give and receive. When the bread and soup were gone, they sat eating peanut butter with a teaspoon, passing between them.

“So, what happened then?” John’s tongue curled around the spoon, cleaning it of the last smears of peanut butter and reloading it before passing it back to Sherlock.

“I don’t know, my brain is--” Sherlock snorted hard and sat up, redoubling over his chest with a groan. His sides were burning with a taut, white heat that pulled at the muscles of his torso. The pain seared through him, his abodmen pulling him in two separate directions simultaneously. John’s hand appeared, warm on his back, petting and soothing.

“Hey, it’s ok. You were severely dehydrated. Some cramping is to be expected. I’ll go and get some more painkillers.”

He left the room before Sherlock had a chance to reply. It didn’t feel like cramp. The muscles were pulled rigid but it felt like they were twisting, wrenching against each other inside his chest. It can’t have been long before John returned to the room, rushed to his side and tried to massage away the tension with warm hands.

It didn’t work, it wouldn’t work. That’s something Sherlock seemed to be innately sure about. He choked back the tablets that John pressed against his lips, washing them down with the glass of water that followed, taking eager gulps and draining it in seconds. He wanted more, needed more.

“John, I’m so thirsty.”

A few pints of water later, the pain subsided to a throbbing ache. When he eased back down into the bed, Sherlock was exhausted, the long arms of sleep enveloping him and dragging him down. Everything about this situation felt out of his control and it was all connected. If only he could think, if only his brain could stay awake a few moments longer to try and put together the facts. But then it was dark.

* * *

He’d seen Sherlock with cuts and bruises, purple and scarlet remnants of the uneven path to justice. He’d even had to patch him up with the occasional stitch here or there, but never anything like this. Seeing him looking so small and powerless, miles away from the towering sculpture of a man that he had first met in Bart’s, gave John a stabbing feeling in his gut. He felt like he was here to protect, he was the one that made sure Sherlock ate and slept and didn’t run blindly into moving traffic. How could he have missed this? The sharp shard of guilt twisted.

John sat there longer than he probably should have, watching Sherlock sleep. He told himself that he was checking on him. He attached a full bag of saline to the drip, checked the feed and took his blood pressure. When there was nothing else that could be done to justify his presence, he sat back down on the chair, his fingers inching closer to Sherlock’s upturned hand. When he finally touched it, it was almost a surprise to him. He’d been trying to will himself away, busy himself in the other room, telling himself that Sherlock would be fine after a bit of rest and rehydration, but he couldn’t leave. And here he was, his hand brushing against the cool skin of Sherlock’s palm.

Sherlock shifted in his sleep. A soft moan escaped his lips and his hand lucidly threaded their fingers together. John sat, staring at the loose fist of their hands in amused disbelief. It probably didn’t mean anything. John wasn’t really sure if he wanted it to, he wasn’t entirely sure of much anymore. Instead, he laid his head down on the bed next to their hands, nestling his face into Sherlock’s arm and joined him in slumber.

John was jolted back into consciousness. Sherlock was sitting bolt upright next to him, clutching desperately at his arm and letting out a low growl of frustration.

“John, get it out,” he demanded, scratching his fingers roughly against the tube at his elbow. Blood began to trickle down his arm, pooling on the white sheets.

“What are you doing? Sherlock, stop!” John lunged and grabbed his wrist, held it tight and yanked him back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“We’re feeding it.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Sherlock looked at him with a hint of nervousness that was entirely foreign to his demeanour, “Last week, during the Horticultural Homicide case, I went to their offices. While I was there I--”

His voice trailed off for a moment and, as though suddenly remembering the wrist held in John’s hand, he tried to wrench it free again. John allowed the limb to slip from his grasp, staying ready to fend off any further attack on the offending equipment. “I was attacked by... something. A plant of some variety. I’ve never seen anything like it. It could move in an entirely animalistic fashion, almost predatory... Anyway, now it appears to have infected me.”

“Something attacked you and you didn’t feel like this was something I should know? Also, I don’t really see how this relates to you trying to rupture your own vein.”

“Don’t you remember? Don’t you see? I couldn’t think before, but now it’s all so obvious. The victims, they were all subject to total isotonic dehydration. It’s how it feeds, how it--”

Sherlock was seized by cramps again, falling back onto the bed and his spine arching painfully upwards. This time, they seemed to be shorter but the reaction more intense; Sherlock’s hands twisted into the sheets, his head pressed backwards into the pillow offering a low, stuttering growl.

Soon, his back eased back down from its violent curve and he lay panting. John sat in silence, questions on his lips, as Sherlock dragged in a few more laboured breaths.

“Sherlock, those bodies. First, there was no sign of any infection on them. Whatever attacked just took what it wanted and left. And second, they were dead.”

Sherlock huffed out a quick laugh, “Yes, well, there is that.”

“Look, if it’s an infection or a paracite, I can isolate it. I can take it to the labs and they can help me try to find a cure, but until then, will you please keep the damned IV in? I’m not having you trying to starve it out of your system and killing yourself in the process, okay?” John had begun to wipe away the blood as he spoke, disinfecting the site and realigning the IV. When he looked up, Sherlock was smiling weakly at him, his face quietly reverent.

“Fine.”

* * *

It was the next morning when they appeared. The bruises hadn’t healed, the bruises he’d been trying to hide; they’d only gotten worse, angry and spreading and a few shades from black. The pain had returned with a vengeance, razoring his insides and leaving his body racked and sore. Afterwards, when he was left to force the oxygen back into his lungs as his limbs shook, he felt them.

The t-shirt Sherlock wore was stained with blossoms of blood, heavy as he drew it back to inspect the damage. At first he couldn’t look, didn’t want to see the lasting results of the plant’s attack. Evidently it wasn’t enough that he couldn’t shift the memory of that evening; that the images and sensations kept drifting back to him, awake or asleep. It wasn’t enough that nothing compared anymore, that a singular experience would forever shadow him. He could never hope to replicate the overwhelming intensity that gripped him that night, he would never experience the pleasure he had felt coursing through every cell of his body. He hadn’t craved sexual excitement since his teenage years, but the memories plagued his mind and it seemed utterly inescapable. When he took himself in hand, he felt nothing. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough again.

There were five on each side of his torso. They didn’t look like the plant, they appeared to be tubes crafted from his own flesh, rounded at the ends and wet with his blood. They were stubby, roughly the length of his hand, and flaccid. Sherlock reached to touch one of them, the longest one that jutted out from beneath his ribcage, sliding a finger down the smooth surface; he could feel it. Every ridge of his fingerprint he could feel sliding along the delicate skin.

These weren’t just alien growths that could be removed, he wasn’t simply the host to some parasitic organism, it was adapting his body to its own purposes; his own flesh being morphed and the nerve endings redirected into it.

Everything began to fit into place. All those bodies, those dry husks the plant had left behind, it had been trying to mate all along but the human body wasn’t designed to be the ideal vessel. They had all weakened and died before completion. Sherlock had been the only one to escape. His mind raced over the facts, dropping in the new information, turning over the picture forming in his head.

The process must have been incomplete. Now, whatever was inside him was using his own DNA to fill in the gaps. The inherent weakness of the plant, the weaknesses that ultimately saved his life, would be eliminated. His stomach lurched as he followed the thought to its reasonable conclusion; it was a part of him and it would be unstoppable.

John walked back into the room, promptly dropping his mug of tea all over the carpet. He rushed over to Sherlock’s side, his hands everywhere.

“What on Earth?” John’s fingers pressed gently onto the skin surrounding around one of the appendages, moving in minute circles and testing the tissue below. “This... this is unbelievable. Do you have any pain?”

He looked at Sherlock, his eyes a sea of concern and confusion. “When they appeared, yes. Now it’s far more manageable.”

John sat back, observing for a moment, his features dancing with the lightning pace of his thoughts as he decided on a plan of action. It was fascinating to watch; the doctor’s deductions. He left the room, skirting around the puddle of tea in the doorway, and returned with his medical kit.

“I need to take a tissue sample. I can take it to Bart’s and we can find out what the hell is going on.” He opened his kit, sterilising an injection site and prepping a local anaesthetic. Sherlock watched the quiet concentration on his face as he effortlessly slid the needle into his torso and pushed the plunger.

A moment later, John touched one of them, pressing his palm against it as he held it lightly in his grip. The sensation was intense and instantaneous; pleasure gripped Sherlock, beginning at the warm hand and spreading to encompass him.

"John," the word hung in the air, thin and strangled. It was entirely different than when he had touched them himself. When John made contact, it was like his skin completed a circuit. Everything became bright and brilliant and intense; too much bombarding his senses and sending them into scattering chaos.

He let go immediately, “Oh god, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Sherlock took a moment to get his breath back, “No, they’re just extremely sensitive it seems.”

“It’s ok, it’s fine. I can wait until the anaesthetic kicks in before cleaning the area.”

"Thank you."

And they waited. Every so often, John would brush the pad of this finger against the fragile surface of the new skin, checking for confirmation in Sherlock's face, in the shudders that would wrack his body or the sharp intake of breath that he couldn't control. Soon it eased, the fierce sensation dulled then disappeared so John could clean the area with a surgical efficiency.

He sliced away a small chunk of tissue, Sherlock watching intently. He was numb to the pain but saw a few hours ahead, when sensation would flood back into the damaged and already over-sensitised... limb? Appendage? Tentacle? His mind wrestled with the terminology to describe his new state of being, the flesh that was a part of him, bled like him, felt like him (but more so).

When John screwed the cap tightly closed on the sample container, Sherlock released a long-held breath. He spent more time fussing around Sherlock than he needed to, checking he has everything he needs within arms’ reach before going out and making sure he pressed his mobile directly into Sherlock’s hand. When there was nothing else to do, he simply stood by the bedside for a few more moments. The delicate lines of his face danced, detailing the passage of his thoughts to Sherlock by semaphore as he tried to think of another way, tried to somehow delegate the task ahead, tried to justify his presence by Sherlock’s bedside.

John left the room in stages; standing by the bed, lingering inside the door frame, pausing behind the closed door.

As he heard the click of the front door echo up the stairs, he felt the first twinges of the pain creeping back into his muscles.

* * *

The work was slow. Far too slow. John felt as though he were wading through treacle as he moved between the departments at St Bart’s with his anonymous samples. He was sure he must have circled the pathology department for hours, days, weeks before answers started trickling back to him.

In its most basic form, it was a bacterial infection. An infection that represented the building blocks for the reproductive system of whatever life form it originated from. It entered the host, burning its available resourced and replicating its cells into maturity. But something had gone wrong. This wasn’t the original bacteria. There didn’t seem to be enough adult cells present in the sample he’d taken from Sherlock, so the infection had morphed for survival; smaller cells had appeared with gamete properties. Instead of simply replicating, the cells were burrowing into the host cells. The product was a horrifying hybrid.

John sat down on the overstuffed chair, the lab assistant shuffling awkwardly next to him before busing himself with something in a different room. John filtered the new information through what he’d already seen; the tentacles, the skin, the nerves, the growth speed. He wouldn’t only have to find a cure for Sherlock, but a vaccine for himself. As the hybrid cells developed to maturity within Sherlock, John becoming infected too would be an increasing risk.

A vaccine would be relatively easy though, much easier than a cure. He already had the cells that he needed, it would just be a matter of killing them off to prevent replication then exposing them to his own immune system. It would be a huge risk with an incalculable room for error, but he had to try. He couldn’t help Sherlock if he became infected himself; there were no options and no time.

John tested it in the lab first, injecting the dead cells into a vial of his own blood. As the vortex spun, he held his palms against the desk, feeling this sharp vibrations of the oscillating machine running up his arms. He tried to make a plan, tried to clear the sickening panic from his mind that clouded his thoughts, but he couldn’t see past more than a few hours ahead of him. That would do have to do then.

Put the vial to the incubator.  
Take a taxi.  
Pick up supplies.  
Return to Sherlock. Then--  
And then what?

His mind swam desperately, trying to grasp into the darkness at ideas that disintegrated to nothing as soon as they were touched upon. John would have to stand in the light surrounded by the nothingness beyond and hope that obstacles would become illuminated as they drew closer.

Sherlock had saved his life, rescued him from his own crippling existence, and now it was John’s turn to repay the favour.

* * *

His entire body felt indefinably full, stretched at the seams and ready to burst. Past ready. So far past ready. He groaned at the ebb and flow of pain that washed over him.

They lay in a tangled mass on the bed around him, heavy and fat and full. They were full of fluid. None had escaped, there was no hard evidence of it, but he knew. Just like Sherlock knew when he was hungry or thirsty or needed the bathroom, he knew that he needed release from the painful fullness.

Sherlock pressed the heel of his hand against one of them, rolling tight pressure down its length to try and force out the liquid held inside. It moved with his palm, shunting along inside the soft skin of the tentacle, but there was nowhere for it to go. The pressure increased, the pain peaked, sharp and brilliant, before he relented, lifting his hand and returning to the intense ache that bathed the rest of his body.

Distracted, he didn’t hear the click of the latch or John’s shout from the front door or the sharp creak of his footsteps on the stairs drawing closer. At some point he’d squeezed his eyes closed, trying to get some distance and remove his brain from his body. It hadn’t worked, not for a second. When Sherlock felt the touch of John’s hand against his arm, his eyes shot open. He heard his own groans and cries that filled the room, suddenly embarrassed but utterly powerless to stop himself.

Worry was etched into John’s face as he crowded around the bed.

“Oh Christ, Sherlock, I’m so sorry.”

“John, I need your--” there was another sickening wave of pressure that ran through him and he swallowed the sound in his throat, taking a few seconds to regain control over his voice, “--assistance.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“Touch them.”

John hesitated, hovering his hands in the space above Sherlock’s panting chest. Sherlock grew impatient, lashing out and grabbing John’s wrist. He yanked it down to him, pressing the captured hand into the base of one of the tentacles and moving it outwards. John caught on quickly, gently taking the soft tentacle in his hands and massaging down its length. He was so careful though, his touch was a beacon of pleasure through the sea of pain but it was so far away.

“Harder, please.” The words seemed to be enough, confirmation that it was different this time, his touch was wanted, necessary. John took hold of it properly, his hands separating out the heavy, laden tentacle from the sprawling mass of them on the bed and smoothing along its entire length. It was so different now. When he touched them himself, it was sensitive but a predictable sensation. When John lay his hands on him, it was a connection more intimate than anything he’d ever felt; every nerve sang for him, his insides quivered and the world became fuzzy and distant.

John began focusing on the last few inches with one hand, rhythmic tugs, circling his palm over the smooth dome of the tip intermittently, while the other hand dragged slowly along the entire length. Nothing else existed beyond those hands and the lurching thrum of pressure building inside of him. His body was utterly out of his control, writhing and grabbing at the sheets, making incoherent noises that strained his throat.

And then he felt it. The tentacle beginning to dilate. Sherlock tried to warn John, but forming words was a skill that had passed into distant memory. He threw an arm out towards him, his hand reaching and fingers straining to communicate but it only seemed to encourage. John’s pulls and twists were faster now, firmer and sure of themselves, and his entire body vibrated with relief when the first hot spurts of fluid began to pump out of him. It didn’t stop, wave after wave of liquid escaping his tortured body.

He looked over to John, both his hands glistening and wet. A viscous, transparent liquid drenched the front of John’s shirt and puddled in his lap. Splashes of it streaked across his cheek and hung from his jaw in stringy globules. It kept coming, more and more as each wave soothed the pressing ache inside him.

John’s face was serious, his brow furrowed in concentration, “do the others need...” he tailed off as he took in the rest of the tentacles sprawled over each other on the sheets, so much more than he’d seen before leaving for the hospital. No doubt he was trying to blame himself somehow, though Sherlock couldn’t quite figure out why.

“Yes. Please.” His voice was tiny and broken, barely a whisper from his hoarse throat. His breath stolen in erratic gasps.

John worked methodically. When he moved on to a new tentacle, he was no less careful though his hands became more sure of themselves. He was refining his technique, sometimes pushing his thumb against one of the tips and rolling it in a tight circle, sometimes pressing them gently between the palms of his hands and dragging down his length.

He tried to force his eyelids to stay open to allow himself to watch John at work. It was undeniably appealing; his look of hard concentration and aura of dogged determination. John had made Sherlock into a case for investigation, an exercise in his own deductions, and it filled Sherlock with an indefinable warmth that was entirely foreign to him.

Sherlock found himself utterly unable to react to relentless waves of arousal and release that crashed against him. Every muscle in his body vibrated uncontrollably, his limbs quivering and lifeless against the bed.

The last of the tentacles finally succumbed to John’s ministrations, dilating and pumping its contents onto the sodden sheets of the bed. Sherlock tried to give a cry but his throat was raw and only managed a broken croak, barely more than a whisper.

He felt deflated and spent; finally free of the crushing pain of the fluid inside him, Sherlock realised the toll it had taken on his body. Covered in the slick wetness, he found himself drifting into unconsciousness.

The last thing he felt before being dragged down into a fitful sleep was John pressing their foreheads together and laying a featherlight kiss onto his cheek. It grounded him, a solid physical reminder that John was there, that he would care for him and look after him no matter what; he wasn’t alone.

* * *

It started happening every few hours. Whether he was by Sherlock’s bedside or putting the kettle on in the kitchen, John would hear the building groans of discomfort and return to his aid immediately. The first time, Sherlock had been in too much pain to experience any kind of embarrassment. When it began again, his face flushed scarlet as he recognised the first warning signs. Though his own hands seemed to have no discernible effect on the growths that spread from his sides, he buried his face into his pillow and tugged on them, desperately trying to avoid asking for assistance.

It didn’t take John long to notice. Sherlock’s movements creased the thick plastic sheeting John had laid down after cleaning up the mess of the first encounter. It crackled loudly in the quiet of Sherlock’s bedroom. John took hold of his wrist lightly, pulling his hand away and replacing it with his own.

Sherlock refused to look at him, his face still down-turned and his neck glowing with shame.

He looked fragile, his vulnerability so entirely on display. It felt impossibly intimate, this moment they shared as Sherlock was forced to expose a weakness. It wasn’t something that he did; Sherlock was an impenetrable fortress, moving through the world without anyone catching a glimpse of his inner workings. John hadn’t believed the emotionless mask that Sherlock tried to project, not for a second but this was different. Reading Sherlock was a lesson in subtlety; the jubilant quirk of a half smile here, the saddened pull of an eyebrow there. Now Sherlock lay before him, emotionally flayed.

As John began to gently pull and squeeze, he spoke to Sherlock. If Sherlock had been sliced open on an operating table, he would not have been more exposed that he was at that moment and with his words, John tried to sew him up again. Words of support and loyalty. Words of comfort and friendship and something deeper that lay under the surface waiting for them to dip beneath.

John reached for Sherlock’s face, tugging lightly at his chin. He could hear but he needed to see; the lack of pity in John’s face, his unwavering companionship. There was a slight shimmering of tears that had formed in the corner of Sherlock’s eyes from keeping them squeezed too tightly and John brushed them away with the pad of his thumb. John had accepted him as he was from the day they met and now was no different.

Sherlock’s hand flew to grab John’s wrist, his movements uncharacteristically graceless. Sherlock’s fingers were sweat-dampened on John’s skin and held his hand tightly beside Sherlock’s face. He pressed desperate kisses into his palm as John continued to stroke the soft skin of the protrusion on his nearest side. Where words failed him, he let that simple action communicate for him, his trust and understanding spoken through the touch of mouth to palm.

As John began to focus on the sensitive tip, the kisses grew harder and more needy until it was simply Sherlock’s open-mouthed breath that caressed his skin alongside the unrelenting grip of fingers clinging to his wrist.

John pulled against the fierce grip, uncovering Sherlock’s flushed face, his eyes hooded and dark. He wanted to be touch him, the old him, the real him. John pressed his face into Sherlock’s, mouth seeking mouth. If John had ever imagined their first kiss, he would never have pictured the scene before him now but that didn’t make him want it any less. The whole situation was as ridiculous as their relationship had always been and, now that the relationship was changing, it made a warped sort of sense that this would be their milestone.

They moved together, exploring each other while John continued the press and slide of his hands. The skin felt so fragile under his but covered an underlying hardness; they were dense and firm, not heavy exactly but certainly a weighted presence in his hands. As he smoothed over them, they became slightly dewy as though encouraging the motion and facilitating it. His grip slid along them easily. When he focused on the tips, Sherlock would stop breathing for a moment, his mouth open and gasping against John’s. His back arched from the bed as Sherlock’s body beginning to vibrate then descend into a series of shudders.

John held his forehead against Sherlock’s, keeping him grounded and sharing the moment with him. They drew the same air, in shallow breaths and desperate gasps.

John groaned as he felt his hands becoming warm and wet, their movements suddenly frictionless. It covered him, endlessly pumping in thick squirts, soaking into his clothing and dripping from his fingers in fat droplets that disappearing into the tangled web of Sherlock that lay writhing beside him.

He had to leave, had to go to the hospital and check for progress, had to find a way out of the mess they had somehow gotten themselves into but that seemed so far away. Together in that room, surrounded by skin and sweat and almost suffocating arousal, John found himself withdrawing from the world outside.

He would go to Bart’s and retrieve his sample from the incubator. He would put it under a microscope and hope desperately to see some active phagocytosis destroying the invading cells in the blood. He would scour the pathology department for the first results of the endless schedule of testing he had organised in some effort to find a cure.

He would do all of that. Soon.

When he had finished stroking the sweat from Sherlock’s tangled curls, when he had cleaned up the sticky fluid that bathed them, when he forced himself to let go of Sherlock hand that tightly clung to his. Then he would get back to the real world.

Until then it was just the two of them and the real world couldn’t have been further away.

* * *

The first movement was entirely by accident.

Sherlock’s throat rasped with thirst and his body was teetering on the brink of total exhaustion. He thought about reaching out to the glass of water that stood on his beside, willed his leaded arm to lift and grab it, when one of the tentacles flew towards it, knocking the glass backwards to shatter it over the windowsill behind. He lay for a moment in wide-eyed silence.

The plant that attacked him had been mobile, aggressively so. Sherlock had assumed his own appendages to be different; they looked different, felt different, and until now had been totally motionless. They must be reaching maturity.

Sherlock tried it again; thought about reaching towards a newspaper that lay folded on the dressing table a few feet away. He tried to isolate the mental commands to dictate movement that would usually be so unconscious as to be undetectable. He was staring at them, urging the tentacles to bend to his will, when he saw it start again. Two of them on his left side began straightening and reaching towards the newspaper. He felt their weight pulling against the flesh of his torso, his body subtly shifting to accommodate its new balance distribution.

They fumbled and fell. He tried again, stretching, reaching, falling, repeating. The movement was awkward and unnatural. It felt as though they were resisting his commands somehow.

If he could master his own motor functions, it might change everything. Instead of existing as a pathetic heap of flesh, he would be functional again, to some degree at least. Who knew how long it would take to find a cure for whatever had warped his body, but in the meantime he could return to some semblance of normality. Perhaps even benefiting him, if he could master his finer motor skills.

Sherlock spent hours on the exercise, learning to flex and move them individually, building up the newly formed muscles and fighting against the innate voice inside him that tried to make him stop. Every time they touched an object in the room, it would send shivering back through him, his nervous system overworked and hyperactive. Each drop to the floor a painful jolt, each brush past the soft silk of a shirt a powerful caress. He would have lost himself in the sensation if he hadn’t felt the touch of John’s hands, intense and perfect and utterly overshadowing.

He practised until the too-full ache returned and shifted into a throbbing pain deep in his torso.

Sherlock suspected that he’d probably always needed John. Even before they met, he had needed him there by his side, a loyal buffer between Sherlock and the rest of the world. But now that need was tangible, flooding his body with pounding repetition; _need John, need John, need John._

Just as his toes began to curl into the sheets and his muscles began to aggressively contract against the pressure pushing against them, Sherlock heard it. John was home.

The anticipation as the gentle thud of his footsteps grew louder was almost unbearable. When John walked in the door, he looked tired. There was a small, white dressing taped to one of his arms. He must have been--

Sherlock’s brain felt cloudy and distracted.

“John, you seem to--” Sherlock pushed his eyes closed, taking a moment to try and force this thoughts into some sort of cohesive order. Every step that John took towards the bed sent them scattering into disarray.

John looked concerned.

And warm.

And soft.

And perfect.

Every cell in his body wanted him, _want, want, want_. He was drawn to him, reached out to him and then John was there. It was right and natural. He stretched out to touch John and there was no more resistance to the movement. Nature took over.

He was distantly aware of some noise, they might have been words but it was impossible to tell. It didn’t matter.

There had to be more skin.

 _John._

Not enough.

Never enough.

* * *

When he walked through the door, he had expected to see Sherlock sprawled on the bed. He might have expected some sort of low level destruction if he’d gotten bored. Possibly some indication of the pain returning as John had gotten delayed in the traffic of Holborn.

What John had not considered for a moment was the possibility of being confronted with a single-minded mass of animated tentacles reaching for him the moment he stepping through the doorway.

He had tried to ask what the hell was going on, as he was gripped round the waist and dragged over to the bed. He tried to brush off the thick limb that had curled around him, but his hand was caught by another and pulled along with the rest of him.

When he was closer, he noticed Sherlock’s facial expression; he was staring at John, utterly rapt, but when John spoke, he seemed deaf to his words. It wasn’t that Sherlock simply wasn’t responding, it was as if he couldn’t hear him at all, lost unto himself. Sherlock was making a series of low groans, throaty and primal. Something had taken Sherlock over and made him into a conduit for arousal, guided by instinct and unfettered by higher thought process.

John still tried to make contact, saying his name and searching for some sign of recognition, getting nothing but the full intensity of Sherlock gaze, his hands reaching out to John. When the tentacles began to edge under his clothes, he cried out in surprise, shouting to Sherlock as he felt two tentacles lifting his t-shirt, the sound was abruptly muted by one of the tendrils pushing into his mouth.

It felt heavy and thick on his tongue which curled around the intruder in investigation. It pushed further in, lightly brushing his soft pallet and John was going to bite down on it. He had every intention of stopping the thing breaching his throat when it began to release the thick substance directly into his oesophagus. John gagged at the volume of it, involuntarily swallowing some and coughing out the rest which dribbled across his chin and ran down his neck in broken streams.

He hoped that the vaccine he had so recently injected into himself had worked, he hoped that his immune system would be able to fight the influx of invading cells that poured down his throat.

And then he just hoped for more.

He stopped trying to cough up the fluid from the tentacle that had invaded his mouth, instead wrapping his lips around it, stroking his tongue across its delicate underside and coaxing it to give him more. He was hungry for more, needed more, suddenly craving the thick substance that tasted slightly of honey and coated his throat. When he began suckling on it in earnest, shutting his eyes and letting himself be carried away by the ridiculousness of it all, it withdrew from him leaving his mouth empty and searching.

The tentacles continued their work without John’s interruption. They twisted up under his clothes, pushing out and expanding to burst the seams out with a loud rip that filled the room.

He was naked, naked in front of Sherlock whose face was a vision of need. Sex was something that had never come up between them; they’d certainly never discussed it. There was the undeniable frisson of tension which passed silently through their day to day lives but it had not stepped out into the open. Not until the kiss. Sex was something that had always been a possibility, John was sure it would have happened one day but now here he was. And however strange the situation, this certainly was about sex.

Two of the tentacles wrapped around his legs, tugging and encouraging John onto the bed. When he hesitated momentarily, two more joined them, curling around his thighs and lifting him clear off the ground. They lowered him gently onto Sherlock, keeping his legs splayed so John straddled his lap.

John noticed that very little of this seemed to be Sherlock’s doing. He was there and conscious, but he seemed to have been taken over by whatever it was that had done this to him in the first place. Something autonomous and entirely separate had taken control and was choreographing this intimate dance between them. Sherlock sat up to meet him, drawing John’s face towards him downwards and claiming his mouth in messy urgency. There was none of the gentle exploration from before. Now he was just blindly seeking sensation, delving into John’s mouth in saliva slicked thrusts.

The tentacles kept hold of his legs, one restraining him each at the ankle, twisting in a thick coil around his lower legs. Two more took control of his arms, corkscrewing themselves around the entire lengths of them then folding over his shoulders. He tested his restraints briefly, pulling his arms up and away, receiving a sharp yank against his shoulders, forcefully pushing him down into Sherlock’s lap. It wasn’t any serious effort at escape, he wanted this; he wanted to see Sherlock writhing in pleasure, he wanted to share this with him.

When he stopped struggling, they seemed to just roam over his body for a while, leaving cool trails of fluid across his chest, (back, neck, face, hair) that tingled in their wake. He was still restrained, but that left six of the tentacles free to explore him alongside Sherlock hands that slid over his skin, blending the drips of fluid into a thin sheen that covered him.

John’s torso was abruptly shoved forwards, shunting him roughly against Sherlock’s bare chest and pushing them both back towards the bed. As John leaned into the solid plane of contact, he felt the soft weight of a tentacle resting against his spine. It began dragging slowly downwards, wet and slippery and moving towards his buttocks. It was too much, he wasn’t ready yet, it suddenly seemed all too real; he tried to shift away from it, lurching forward for just a second before there was a tight squeezing pain around his arms which yanked him back. It pulled his damaged shoulder sharply against the joint, and he cried out at the intense pressure pushing into the thick scar tissue, vindictive and intentional. As his mouth opened in harsh complaint, it was filled again, more of the delicious liquid covering his tongue and pouring down his throat before he had time to react.

As he swallowed, the pain disappeared into the blurred nothingness that lay beyond the bed and their bodies. He didn’t fight it anymore; he didn’t want to. Along with the pain, the fear had disappeared too, leaving only the sparking lust that left his body mindlessly shifting and thrusting, encouraging the excruciatingly slow movement that slid down his spine.

Finally he felt his buttocks being parted, a thick stream of slime dribbling down his cleft and dripping from his balls. His groans were muffled but insistent as he felt the tentacle putting a gentle, circling pressure against his hole. It wasn’t enough, he needed more and thrust back into the sensation fast before he could be restrained. John wanted it now, needed to feel it inside his body, taking him and filling him. The probing tentacle followed his movements perfectly, withdrawing as John pushed back into the sensation, continuing its gentle pressure with a maddening consistency.

His muscles trembling, he gave up trying to arch backwards into the pressure and began to thrust forwards instead, seeking the heat and friction of Sherlock’s body beneath him. Sherlock stared down at John’s cock, jabbing and glancing at the only part of Sherlock’s belly that he could reach, as John moaned at the contact regardless. Eventually some small part of Sherlock’s brain seemed to acknowledge the movement and he hovered his hand over where their bodies touched, nearly touched, didn’t touch enough. He seemed to be weighing up his options of where to touch first.

As the hand still floated uncertainly between them, one of the soft lengths reached into the space between their bodies, curling around their cocks and tightening to draw them together. It was perfect, tight and smooth and undulating around them. He could feel the hard heat of Sherlock’s penis pressed against his own, the minute drag and pull of their foreskins rubbing against each other as John thrust into the space. The tentacle coiled around them rippled and squeezed them together, pressing hard at the base then easing off towards the tip, keeping John’s entire body on a knife edge.

He sucked hard on the tentacle in his mouth. Its feed had slacked off to a steady drip, but John ran his lips along as much of its length as he could manage, savouring the feel inside his mouth. He wriggled his tongue over the tip, trying to push into the dilated hole that oozed too slowly.

As he grazed his teeth lightly across its surface, he felt himself being breached and it was unlike anything he’d experienced before. John could feel it twisting and moving inside him as the tentacle pushed further past his stretched ring of muscle. His body began to vibrate, muscles pulling taut as the sensation built to take him over. Its slow push forward carried on, pushing further and further inside him until the first twinges of pain sparked distantly in his dulled senses.

The tentacle in his arse eventually stopped its endless penetration and began to pull out, thrusting back into him in absurdly long strokes. It seemed to ripple against his stretched opening, starting to pump its fluid deep inside him.

Sherlock began his own thrusting into the flesh that housed their cocks. John’s brain immediately lost all coherent thought to the rhythmic rut of Sherlock’s penis against his own and the dull stretch of liquid pumping into his abdomen.

All sense of linear time dissolved, as John hovered helplessly at the brink of his own orgasm but somehow not tipping over that edge. John had no sense of how long he’d been held there when the thick tentacle in his mouth began pushing forward. Further this time, further than he could take, pushing into his soft pallet and bullying its way into John’s throat. His gag reflex clamped down on the intrusion, his oesophagus clenching aggressively, when his mouth filled with the taste of honey and his throat relaxed to accommodate its penetrating thrusts. The tentacle invading his arse seemed to widen inside him, pressing against his prostate hard and finally, _finally_ pushing John over into delicious release. Every muscle in his body surged with relief, wave after wave of semen spurting from his over-stimulated body.

He felt _fucked_ , entirely.

Sherlock began to shake beneath him, crying out in wordless sound as he tipped over the edge of his own orgasm. The outside tentacles that still skimmed over John’s flesh began to leak, then pour over him, dousing them both in clear, gelatinous pools that glistened on their sweat soaked bodies.

And then they began to withdraw. Without their supporting restraint, John’s body turned into a boneless mass, dropping down onto Sherlock’s chest beneath him and panting heavily. John could feel every nerve ending in his body firing as he focused on the task of drawing oxygen into his body.

They lay in a semiconscious silence, drifting in and out of a blissful half-sleep.

Later, when their lungs could move without laboured effort and their vision had cleared, Sherlock shifted and made room for John at one side, gently angling his body to flop John onto the bed beside him. John fluttered his eyes open, reaching out a tentative palm to cup Sherlock’s jaw and bring his face down to meet him. Sherlock was blushing, his cheekbones burning crimson.

“I’m sorry. I... Did I hurt you?” Sherlock stared into John’s eyes with such intense worry, as though John was made of tissue paper and standing in the rain.

“No. I don’t think so. And it wasn’t your fault.”

“I couldn’t stop.” Sherlock tried to look away, tried to hide his face.

“Hey, it’s alright. It was... actually, it was pretty amazing.”

John closed the gap to press their mouths together. It was slow and relaxed, worlds away from the disjointed need from before. They savoured each other in languid exploration, gentle strokes of tongue across tongue. John could feel the lines of worry began dissolve from Sherlock’s face, one by one. Nothing was ruined. Nothing was broken. He was still there.

They lay together, some of the tentacles gently draping themselves over John’s body and pressing him against Sherlock. Seemingly sated enough to lie still now, they were a comforting weight surrounding him.

John huffed a quiet laugh into the pillow, “I think you’ve got enough limbs to get your own damned phone out of your jacket pockets now, you know.”

“But why would I when I have you?”


End file.
